UN snubbed again in
Myanmar By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Myanmar's military regime fired
a warning shot this week to let the United Nations
and the international community know that it has
no intention of caving into outside pressure for
domestic political reform.
The junta's
hardline stance was underscored during a rare
press conference held earlier this week by the
country's information minister, Brigadier General
Kyaw Hsan, when he told reporters that its
internal affairs were not open to outside
influence.
He also confirmed what many
analysts had long suspected in
recent months: the country's
military rulers are in no mood to include
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, currently
in her 12th year under house arrest, in
discussions on the drafting of a new constitution
designed to eventually pave the way for elections.
"No assistance or advice from other
persons is required," Kyaw Hsan, a known close
confidante of Myanmar's strongman General Than
Shwe, said on Monday. The press conference was the
first held by the junta since its brutal crackdown
on peaceful pro-democracy protesters in late
September.
The comments also came on the
day the military-appointed Committee for Drafting
a New Constitution was to begin work. This phase
represents the third in a seven-step "Road Map" to
democracy that the junta has been touting since it
was first unveiled in August 2003. However no time
limit has been placed on the committee's 54
appointees to finish their task.
The UN,
however, has been pressing for a different
outcome. Ibrahim Gambari, special UN envoy to
Myanmar, informed the international community
following two visits to Myanmar since the
crackdown that Suu Kyi should be given a
significant role to play in any political reform
process. The Nigerian diplomat has urged the junta
to release her from detention and involve her and
her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in
the constitution drafting process.
Initial
signs suggested that the junta had warmed to
Gambari's appeals, given that his mission was
reportedly backed by some of the military regime's
crucial regional allies, including China and
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
members. The junta permitted Suu Kyi to meet a
government liaison officer, labor minister Aung
Kyi, on three occasions as part of the UN's
reconciliation effort. After one of these broadly
publicized meetings, Suu Kyi described the
discussions as "positive".
But those early
hopes have now largely been dashed with the junta
reverting to its more familiar role of stubbornly
defending its entrenched positions. "The junta
wants to demonstrate that it will not be cowed by
international pressure and it doesn't want outside
mediation," Aung Naing Oo, a Myanmar political
analyst living in exile in Thailand, said in an
interview. "It is a sign that the [Myanmar]
military has become more entrenched."
The
reaction to recent events from the US government,
which recently imposed new sanctions targeting
specific junta members, was the first in what
could be a litany of statements of condemnation
and disappointment from Western capitals across
the world. Even Beijing had publicly backed
Gambari's mission to Myanmar on behalf of the
international community and so had members of the
10-nation regional bloc ASEAN, of which Myanmar is
a member.
"We condemn the [Myanmar]
regime's rejection of meaningful participation for
Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratic and ethnic
minority leaders in the process of drafting a
national constitution," the US Department of State
spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement
during a press briefing earlier this week. "The
regime's December 3 statement to the diplomatic
corps made clear that Senior General Than Shwe and
his regime have no intention to begin a genuine,
inclusive dialogue necessary for a democratic
transition."
But this week's hard stance
on political reform was not the only rebuff that
the junta had in store for the UN. On Tuesday, the
UN resident coordinator Charles Petrie left Yangon
after the military regime refused to extend his
visa. Petrie had angered the regime by making a
media statement that was released by the local UN
office in late October expressing concerns about
Myanmar's "deteriorating humanitarian condition".
The UN's view about increasing poverty in
the country conveyed what was already widely
known, considering that the mass pro-democracy
protests in September had evolved out of small
public demonstrations that were staged in
mid-August after the junta removed fuel price
subsidies and effectively raised the price of fuel
by 500% overnight. Economic conditions have since
continued to worsen, according to residents in
Yangon. Many who survive on a daily wage are even
cutting back on meals, they said.
The
stakes have consequently increased for Gambari,
who is due back in Myanmar later this month or in
early 2008, to re-engage with the junta. "Unless
Gambari can bring more leverage from the [UN]
Security Council and China, his next mission will
be a failure," says Win Min, a Myanmar academic
attached to Payap University, in Thailand's
northern city of Chiang Mai. "The junta feels it
has less pressure on its back now that the ASEAN
summit is over."
But there are growing
signs within Myanmar that its oppressed people
have little reason for optimism, Win Min said.
"Most people have lost hope for political change
to be achieved with the help of the UN and the
international community. They know now that
nothing will change as long as Than Shwe remains
in power."
It is a view shaped by the
current regime's long record of repression. After
all, the first step in the "Road Map" to democracy
was the reconvening of a National Convention to
draft the new charter. The initial round of talks
for this convention began 14 years ago as an
effort to prevent the NLD party that Suu Kyi heads
from forming a government after it secured a
thumping mandate in the 1990 parliamentary
elections a junta-backed party lost and the
generals later annulled.
(Inter Press
Service with editing by Asia Times Online)
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